Lacuna Coil co-vocalist Cristina Scabbia was the guest on Full Metal Jackie’s radio show this past weekend. Fresh off the “Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock” tour, Scabbia talked about the trek, the band’s transition after having two members retire and channeling her own personal struggles into the band’s songwriting. If you missed Jackie’s show, here’s her full interview with Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia.

It’s Full Metal Jackie bringing you two full hours of metal each and every week. On the show with us, once again, Christina from Lacuna Coil.

Oh I’m doing alright! It’s so good to talk to you!

For sure, thanks so much for being on the show. Obviously you’re here to talk about the brand new record ‘Broken Crown Halo,’ the seventh studio album from Lacuna Coil and follow up to the awesome ‘Dark Adrenaline’ record. But first, let’s talk about the “Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock” tour, how did it go?

It’s was amazing, it was amazing! I had a great time, I had a great time, such a great vibe with all the other bands. The show went really successful for the band. It turned out to be great exposure for us. It was awesome!

What aspect of that tour, being the “hardest chicks in hard rock,” was most empowering to you, as an individual and collectively with the other women on the bill?

Well, individually for me it was a cool challenge every night, because I’ve never seen it as a competition or anything like that in between the bands, because all the bands were playing something completely different. We were there to have a good time and to play our music, so for me, it was just empowering to see every night, the crowd going with our music.

I had a great time on stage. I really like to perform. I really like interacting with the crowds, so it was more about having a good time during the shows than thinking about, ‘Oh, we’re just like there were a lot of females on this run.’ I didn’t really think about that.

Cristina, even though the songwriters are still the same, musically what would you like to explore with the new drummer and Maus as the sole guitar player and now that the previous members have retired from the band?

It’s been a while that we have been on tour with Ryan Folden, which is the guy that we’re having on drums, so it’s not a new person coming in the band, but at the same time, it’s not like a stable member. So, he’s working with us because we know him very well. He was Chris’ drum tech for a long time, and he actually came with us on tour for more than a year because our drummer had a baby girl so he needed to stay home. So he was the perfect person to be with us on tour, because he knew all the songs. He’s an amazing drummer, he has an amazing attitude to be on a tour bus with other people for so many months, so he was the obvious choice.

Regarding the guitars, we find it great to work with one guitar only, actually! Everybody says there is an even bigger punch with one guitar only, because you can hear all the layers, all the little parts that you couldn’t really hear with two guitars, because of course you have two guitars, but in a way they kind of work on hiding each other sometimes so you can’t really hear everything.

Cristina, you said personally last year was difficult for you. How much of your life became part of the songs on ‘Broken Crown Halo’ and is personal struggle a creative advantage for a songwriter?

Yes, I mean for us it’s really important to be inspired by what’s happening around us, and I think it’s absolutely natural to live an experience and put it in your art because it’s part of who you are. We definitely put it in the music, in the lyrics, but always using metaphors, because what we went through are things that can happen to everyone, and everyone can relate to, you know, the up and downs in life. So it was a sort of self therapy for us and thinking about a way to get out.

As a person, how would you be different if you didn’t have the physical and emotional release of performing live on stage?

That I can’t tell, but I can definitely tell that the feelings of when you’re in the recording studio are completely different than the feeling that you have before a live performance or before a tour. It’s definitely like a completely different level of adrenaline going on, because in the studio you’re like super focused and you’re thinking about the new songs and to record them in the proper way, but when you’re on tour it’s a completely different, you’re in a completely different element.

I don’t know how different I would be, but I definitely know that touring the world and being able to meet the different crowds gave me so much and changed me as a person because now I am definitely more open minded towards every other culture. I know that there is not just my little backyard, and I just have to stay there, but I can explore the whole world, and I am more confident in myself and I just appreciate the diversity in every human being. So that changed me so much. I probably wouldn’t be as I am now.

What can we expect in terms of touring for the rest of the year?

Well we will be on tour without even going back home up until the end of May here in the States. We just started a headliner tour. Then, we will take a few days to go to South America and then more North American gigs, and then we’re going back home to play all the summer festivals and other stuff that will be coming up because there is always something new to be announced. We don’t even have a schedule for the whole year, but it’s going to be touring, touring, touring.

Fantastic.

Busy year!

Busy as always. It’s better to be busy than not.

I mean we love what we do, so I can’t even call it a job. [laughs] It’s a passion, and something that I really enjoy to do, so it’s good.

I appreciate you being on the show again and good luck with this new record, I will see you very soon.

Thank you very much!

This coming weekend, Full Metal Jackie will welcome on her show Cynic‘s Paul Masvidal. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com.

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